¹ tn Heb “for you accomplished my justice and my legal claim.”

² tn Heb “you sat on a throne [as] one who judges [with] righteousness.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 4 probably allude to a recent victory (see vv. 5-7). Another option is to understand the verbs as describing what is typical (“you defend…you sit on a throne”).

³ sn Though he is confident that the Lord is aware of his situation (see v. 22a), the psalmist compares the Lord’s inactivity to sleep and urges him to wake up.

⁴ tn Heb “for my justice.”

⁵ tn Heb “for my cause.”

⁶ tn Heb “and he will bring out like light your vindication, and your just cause like noonday.”

⁷ tn Heb “my affairs they disturb.” For other instances of דָּבָר (davar) meaning “affairs, business,” see BDB 183 s.v.. The Piel of עָצַב (’atsav, “to hurt”) occurs only here and in Isa 63:10, where it is used of “grieving” (or “offending”) the Lord’s holy Spirit. Here in Ps 56:5, the verb seems to carry the nuance “disturb, upset,” in the sense of “cause trouble.”

⁸ tn Heb “against me [are] all their thoughts for harm.”

⁹ tn The Hebrew noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9). Because they were so vulnerable and were frequently exploited, fatherless children are often mentioned as epitomizing the oppressed (see Pss 10:14; 68:5; 94:6; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).

¹⁰ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading a first person verb form here. The Kethib reads the second person.

¹¹ tn Heb “and the just cause of the poor.”